Woman Loses Social Security Benefits, Husband Missing For 16 Years Is Alive And Well

CHATTAROY, Wash -- A woman fighting to regain widow's benefits has learned Social Security Administration officials were right -- her husband really is still alive.

Judy Sullivan, 66, was given proof that a man who identified himself as Jack Sullivan in an undisclosed East Coast location was the same man who vanished 16 years ago after 25 years of marriage, the Spokesman-Review of Spokane reported Tuesday.

Earlier this year, Social Security officials stopped sending checks and demanded that Judy Sullivan repay the more than $90,000 she had received, saying Jack Sullivan had been found. A man by that name applied for a Social Security card and driver's license, and his identity was confirmed, an official said.

Tango’s Take
We picture this going down like Nelson's dad leaving on The Simpsons, he went out for a pack of smokes and never came back. Thank God that his name wasn’t John Smith or Bill Johnson. Then Social Security and Judy Sullivan would have had a problem. How does a guy just disappear like this? Did the wife really know that he was alive but just ‘dead to me?’ Is he going to make some Bill Murray-in-Broken Flowers-esque road trip to make amends for all the wrong he’s done? We suppose that a divorce is in order. We’re a little disappointed, from a voyeur’s standpoint, that there was not a fake death plus weird funeral involved. He could have worn a disguise and thrown flowers on his own grave and whispers, “Jack Sullivan is dead, long live Jack Sullivan.”